on the shoulder of midgets

You don't need something more to get something more. That's what emergence means. Life can emerge from physics and chemistry plus a lot of accidents. The human mind can arise from neurobiology and a lot of accidents, the way the chemical bond arises from physics and certain accidents. Doesn't diminish the importance of these subjects to know they follow from more fundamental things plus accidents.

TED talk on beauty and truth in physics (video TC 14m48s), March 2007

I thought of killing myself but soon decided that I could always try MIT and then kill myself later, if it was that bad. But, I couldn't commit suicide and then try MIT afterwards. The two operations, suicide and going to MIT, don't commute...

The Making of a Physicist: A Talk with Murray Gell-Mann

"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have been surrounded by midgets." -- allegedly said by Murray Gell-Mann